Hall of Fame
John Jahn is a native of Jupiter, Florida, and attended The King’s Academy, where he was a varsity athlete in football and track and field.
Jahn enrolled at Lake Forest College in 1983 and was a member of the Foresters’ conference championship football team that fall. He became the team’s starting left tackle the following season and was a First Team All-Midwest Collegiate Athletic Conference North Division selection as a junior and senior. Jahn, who was 6’5” and more than 300 pounds, also earned All-American honors from multiple organizations his senior year and was an alternate for the 1987 Hula Bowl, becoming the first NCAA Division III player to receive an invitation to the annual college all-star game. Lake Forest was 23-11 overall and 16-9 in conference play during his four years at the College.
The Chicago Tribune published a 1986 cover story about Jahn entitled “Lake Forest Hulk Isn’t Even a Bear.” In the article, Forester Head Coach Mike Dau stated, “There isn’t a single player in Division III as strong as him. There are few players in the NFL as strong as him.” Jahn drew interest from multiple NFL teams as well as the World Wrestling Federation. The business major instead chose to complete his education and, as a senior, founded an accounting and management company that he was still running at the time of his induction 36 years later.
While recovering from an injury during his freshman year at the College, Jahn’s interest in weightlifting grew. At Lake Forest, he was the only member of the 500-pound bench club. He competed in powerlifting for the next 15 years, winning national and world Amateur Athletic Union and World Natural Powerlifting Association titles and setting multiple WNPA records in the late 1990s. Jahn still held 10 world and national drug-free powerlifting records at the time of his induction.
